1818.] Scientific Intelligence. 313 



regulus, which consisted of the Sirium still containing sulphur, 

 arsenic, nickel, and iron, in consequence of the filter not having 

 been sufficiently well washed. 



Remark of the Editor. — The above is the account of the dis- 

 covery which has been transmitted to us, and which, as we are 

 assured, has excited much attention among the Austrian philo- 

 sophers. The author of the letter may have omitted some 

 important particulars ; for, as it now stands, nobody can give 

 credit to M. Vest's Sirium, but must rather be impressed with 

 his want of experience. As he appears not to know that nickel 

 is not precipitated from its solutions by sulphuretted hydrogen, 

 when they are acid, and that it is partially precipitated when 

 they are neutral, we must beg him to repeat his experiments in 

 order to discover whether his Sirium be not merely very impure 

 nickel. 



V. Notice on Picrotoxine, considered as a new Vegetable Alkali. 



By M. Boullay.* 



The term picrotoxine has been employed by M. Boullay to 

 express the acrid, narcotic principle, to which the cocculus 

 indicus, the fruit of the Menispermum cocculus, owes its 

 poisonous qualities .'1* This principle he conceives is analogous 

 to the morphium, which has been detected in opium, and which 

 appears to constitute the active ingredient in that drug ; and he 

 further supposes, that there are other vegetables which contain 

 substances that may all be regarded as belonging to the same 

 genus. 



A strong infusion of the seeds of the Menispermum cocculus, 

 to which ammonia had been added in excess, precipitated by 

 degrees the picrotoxine in the form of a white, granulated, and 

 crystalline powder. This precipitate, after being washed, is 

 partially dissolved by alcohol without colouring it, and is sepa- 

 rated from it by the spontaneous evaporation of the alcohol, 

 in the form of very beautiful silky needles. 



A strong infusion of 100 parts of these seeds in alcohol, gently 

 evaporated to ± of its bulk, had 10 parts of calcined and well- 

 washed magnesia added, and was boiled for a quarter of an hour. 

 The filtered fluid, which was powerfully acid before the addition 

 of the magnesia, was then found to be sensibly alkaline by its 

 action upon litmus paper and the tincture of rhubarb. A greyish 

 deposit was collected upon the filter, which, after being lixiviated 

 and treated with boiling alcohol, produced crystals of the same 

 nature with those obtained in the former experiment, except 

 that they were a little less white. 



The picrotoxine which was obtained in these experiments had 

 only a weak action on vegetable colours ; but it readily dissolved 

 in acids, neutralizing them, and forming with them proper saline 

 compounds ; it is, therefore, especially from its property of 



* Abstracted from Journ. Pharm. iv. 367. (Aug. 1818.) 

 t Thomson's Chemistry, iv. 55. (Fifth Edit.) 



